Turns out the Sword of Damocles is not a parable about the precariousness of people in positions of power, it's just a first hand allegory of a neurodivergent person with a scheduled phonecall in the the afternoon.
Anything time-based. Fuck voicemail, I don't have time to listen to the slow voice read everything out, give me a ui and words and let me read at 700wpm. Even shit like power buttons make me mad. I'm always doing stuff, I can't dedicate 2 seconds to turning on my headphones because I'm using that hand for something else, like carrying food or opening something. The only bottleneck for how fast I can do something should be me. Bring back switches!
That one little reminder that you are different than everybody else, and no matter how hard you try, no matter what medicines you take, you will always be alone in that way.
Getting interrupted "real quick" while I'm in the zone.
To not understate, everyone hates that, yes, but I am actively done for the day. I don't want to talk to anyone anymore, I lose my appetite, I don't want to play my games, I don't want to finish work.
I'm done, and the task that I was doing is at an extreme risk of never being completed ever again.
I make my space to be "in the zone" with so much effort, don't break it, it's sacred to me.
Imagine watching a magical 3 hour movie and 2 hours in somebody cuts the power, and if you want to watch it again you have to start from the beginning
Any minor inconvenience or disruption of my plans.
Someone wanting something but instead of asking for it directly, they drop hints. Even if I pick up the hint, I refuse to acknowledge them if you're not going to just say what you mean.
Persiatent and/or loud noises. Macherinery going, big fans, large groups of people all talking at once, the chirp of a smoke alarm needing a new battery, etc.
Bright white lights give me headaches. Bright neon lights are cool and fun tho. I don't really understand this one myself; a light blue light is almost white but it's okay. 🤷♂️
I'm in Autistic burnout... the slightest stress - just about any official letter, appointment with benefit agency or sometimes just something nasty on the news - can lead me straight into dissociation or shutdown. Occasionally, just having to concentrate hard can also wipe me out in a similar way. It usually takes at least a few days for me to recover.
I'm nearly 60, and this is new to me - I mean, I've had bouts before, but never as debilitating as this. I used to be able to cope with these things, even if they darkened my day.
Solidarity. You're so right. It's a wild ride, but I'm charting my symptoms, and they ARE improving - I hope the same is true for you. U had to make some big changes, cutting out energy drains, and then cut more and more. Self care is the most important thing in burnout, but learning what you need to do to provide yourself care is the hardest.
Plans changing or being shown something I forgot/didn't realize I was supposed to do can make me just not want to do anything for the rest of the day. Even stuff that makes me happy like watching movies or going for a walk in the park just seems like these monsterous tasks I can't handle afterwards.
Same. And my (now ex-) wife knew that, and toward the end of our relationship, it seems like she would make the most intricate plans just to completely change them at the last moment.
There was one day we had a plan to take the kids to meet her brothers at a sandwich shop down the street that we often went to - we were going separate ways afterwards so we took different cars, I went down the street and waited... And waited... And called her, she said she had gotten hung up getting something for one of the kids, but she was almost there... Waited another couple minutes (the place was literally 2 minutes away from the house) still no sign of her or her brothers so I called again... She said she was turning on x street- 3 miles away! Long story short (too late) she had changed the plan and we were going to the mall, and supposedly she told me that, but I sure as hell didn't remember that... And as it turned out, where she was going afterwards was to meet her affair partner, but I didn't know that then...
"Hey, let's meet up later today and do something fun!" Instant anxiety for the rest of the day. Plan changes are bad and worse if they are non-specific. There's a reason I don't cultivate friendships anymore.
Especially if you have one of those friends who invites you to do something, and then they "just have to do a thing real quick" and you end up going with them while they do a bunch of random chores in various places.
It would absolutelybe anxiety-inducing. But if they said so up-front it'd be less bad than my, deliberately keeping-it-vague, example. That said: I don't want anyone that "just wanted to visit" and "shoot the shit" in my life. I want to plan social encounters at least a week in advance, longer is better.
When someone interrupts you in the middle of doing something to talk about something and they keep talking on and on just repeating themselves bringing no new information.
When my workflow is repeatedly interrupted by a stupid notification, request to "log in your Microslop account" or the OS hanging a few seconds after every use input on the Windows computer that I am forced to use for work. All unnecessary hurdles that interrupt my ideal workflow are the worst.
When you're working in something that requires you to concentrate and you are being repeatedly pulled out of this state of concentration by people who bug you about things. If it happens too many times in a row you end up with a huge headache and need a few hours of rest before you can concentrate again.
I have this friend that I invite over sometimes, but he has this habit of extending that invite to mutual friends without telling me, and so I’ll suddenly have 2 or 3 people rocking up to my place unexpectedly.
It drives me absolutely bananas. It was supposed to be a low-key hang out and now I have to come up with group activities on the spot.
That is unacceptable behavior, and I am quite sure many neurotypicals would also agree, even though it definitely depends on the cultural context as well. At least here it is just extremely rude to bring more quests without asking the host first, or at least telling them beforehand, unless you specifically have that type of relationship, or the invite was clearly open. That is like intentionally trying to embarass you in front of their other friends, as you might not have enough food, or drink, or other things prepared. That person would not be my friend afterwards.
Oh my god, this resonates hard. When I go over and the plan is to play board games but somehow it ends up having a group of 7 where the ideal group is 4 and I don't have 7 Wonders to play. It always ends up just drinking and talking because the group is too big to do anything.
Not being on time to a planned event. I want to be slightly early/on time. For reasons unbeknownst to me, when I say "we need to leave at 35 after to get there on time", the people I'm going with aren't ready until 50 after. Drives me absolutely bonkers.
I hate not being on time. It gives me mad anxiety. I’m usually 10 mins early and then everyone else is late (which I’m surprisingly ok with - I just don’t want to be late myself).
I can completely understand how anxious and upset you’d be if someone made you wait so you were late to an event.
One time in high school I was supposed to go to a movie with a friend of mine, she was supposed to come to my place first and we'd leave from there. She never showed up (and it was the 90s so no texting) so I was just like "okay" and went about my day. Two days later she randomly showed up at my house and asked if I wanted to go. I said no because she was two entire days late and now I'm doing something else, and she got annoyed at me for not dropping everything and going.
People being rude. In particular, people eating or making sporadic noises near me at work. And people who talk on speakerphone on quiet trains. I just… can’t handle it.
Two related things: people commenting on my tone of voice, and people assuming my emotions (usually because of my tone of voice.)
I've got a lot of trauma related to my tone. I've been punished so many times for it without having any clue what people were talking about, and now whenever someone brings up that word, all the deep-seated pain immediately rises to the surface. The only way I've found to get by is to heavily mask - if I'm clearly cheery, nobody can accuse me of having the wrong tone or attitude. Problem is, masking takes effort. When my energy is low, I can't self-monitor the way I'd like to, and people start to think I'm upset because my tone reverts to the way I naturally talk. I'll be happy, just a bit stressed or tired, and people will start saying shit like, "Calm down," or "Do you need a break? You're upset, go take a break."
Then when that happens, it's like my battery goes from 20% to zero. It's so hard to self-advocate when others think they know what you're feeling better than you do. When you can't control your vocal tone, people will assume any response is proof that you were upset in the first place (instead of a sign that their assumptions just sapped the last bit of energy out of you.) It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, upsetting me when I wasn't upset before, even if I was feeling great beforehand.
I wish neurotypical people could understand that not everyone expresses their emotions through tone, that sometimes it's a matter of energy being diverted from masking and into more crucial, pertinent tasks. Honestly, I wish I didn't have to mask at all, but I know that if I didn't I'd get a lot more comments and assumptions thrown at me. In the end, letting the mask slip results in punishment. Talking the way I naturally talk is punishment-worthy. That's a lesson that keeps getting reinforced every time I dare not put effort into masking and tone-modulation first and foremost.
Oooh and it's a double edged sword because people assume that your cheery mask voice is your default, so when it slips because you're tired, they assume that must mean something is really wrong because you are normally all cheery.
So sorry this has been used against you in such a horrible way
I have a naturally resting bitch face, and the tone of my voice can sound pissed off even when I'm not. It really boils my piss having to justify myself when all I'm doing is happily being somewhere in my own head minding my own business
Doing or saying something that you later realise afterwards was not "normal" behavior and that people saw past the crack in your mask.
Guaranteed to give you an instant impostor syndrome attack that will last for the rest of the day, leaving you obsessively overthinking about how your messed up that basic social interaction, which leads you to make even more mistakes like that which compounds the problem.
I’ve had similar experiences about childhood stories. My parents were… Uhh… Not great. There have been several instances where I have told what I thought was a funny story, only to have friends/coworkers/etc end up looking horrified instead.
Them: “Ugh I hate having to tell my parents no. My mom keeps nagging me to do [something benign] and I really don’t want to. I know it’s going to be a big argument. It’s just bad for my mental health.”
Me: “Oh yeah, I know how you feel. My dad would always try to pick me up from elementary school while drunk. I’d have to tell him I was walking home instead of getting into the truck with him. It always turned into a big argument, where he’d follow along beside me yelling out his window while I was walking on the sidewalk. But I knew that eventually he’d get frustrated and drive off by the time I was at the end of the block, and he’d always be passed out by the time I made it home anyways. She’s just testing your boundaries and you should stick to your guns. Don’t let her pressure you into doing something you’re not comfortable with, cuz we’re full adults now. Don’t let her treat you like a kid just because she’s older than you. Ya know?”
Them, visibly concerned: “I-… Uhh… Do you still talk to your dad?”
Me: “Not really. We just see each other at holidays. He lives a few hours away, so it’s not like I’m going to hang out with him regularly. Why?”
I've gone days after an interaction with a cashier or similar (i.e. someone who will have forgotten our interaction two minutes later) thinking about how the phrase I used was dumb or weird.
With people I know it's even worse. I get "remember that time you said that weird thing" a year later.. it sucks.
Ugh, rumination!! Absolute bane of my existence! If I'm left alone with my thoughts, they go supernova on this shit. Apparently it's a fight or flight mechanism? Or at least it's trying to protect you, but it doesn't, it just sends me into a spiral. I used to swear at it, but then I started swearing (at myself) in public (oops!) So I had to stop doing that.
But I've had so much trauma in my life, my brain has picked rumination as a way to "not get into an incident like that again, if we micro analyse every nee and old interaction" so I'm working on letting my nervous system know that doesn't keep me safe, that's actually putting me in danger, (it'll break my self worth and sense of self, so much I won't be able to socialise at all, or send me into overwhelm and distress). And i do a Physiological sigh. Mostly working so far.
I still occasionally cringe and spiral over things I did and said 15 years ago. Just typing out this comment is enough to make me feel the tug of the spiral again.
Maybe I’m oblivious, but I can’t imagine a scenario where adjusting your shoe/sock would seem that weird. Now when you have a giant booger stuck in your nose and no tissue, that’s a different story.
If I go shopping and I accidentally stumble on a Saturday market or block party, and they're blasting music and people are dancing and going wild... I'm sleeping in for the next 24 hours.
Just experienced sensory overload again because I had some important tests at school and the most minor sensory annoyances (eating with my parents and grandma and having to tolerate fridge, cutlery noises and some light conversation) sent me into a painful shutdown (which caused my mom and grandma to speak with (EDIT: well to, I couldn't really speak with them) me, which didn't make it better).
In the end, I just forced myself to eat the food and ran(well stumbled) off to my dad (who left early to watch sports) and was alone with him and just sat with him for some time. Not long after, I just left to lay in bed in a fetal position fully covered by a blanket for ~1-3 hours and occasionally listened to some random music in my downloads (with minimum brightness since everything else was too painful).
I'm still in an emotionally vulnerable condition and wouldn't feel safe going out alone(or doing anything else alone for that matter).
I did drive a car and did some risky stuff, I shouldn't do (don't drive in a psychological condition like this, you could kill someone). (EDIT: also, my motor abilities are really limited in sensory overload(how did I even survive the drive))
So sensory overload is in my opinion the most painful thing about autism. Or vulnerability when in distress. Other than that, I like my autistic traits.
We make a plan where you tell me Xyz, but don't mention other important factors to the plan. What I expect to happen doesn't happen. instant mood shift into anger mostly because I should have asked more questions and you should have planned better.
Someone existing in the same space as me can have nothing to do with me and I'll still find them distracting. Somehow they're sitting quietly by themselves talking but that chatter makes me want to turn my skin inside out it's so distracting.
Nothing ruins my whole day but explaining things to me I already understand/speaking to me like I’m stupid will ruin our whole interaction or relationship if they keep doing it. If I don’t know something I’ll be the first to ask questions, seek out instructions and help, I hate feeling unable and will do what I need to to learn but if I’m doing a mundane task and you start telling me how to I’m instantly 100% over you, why do you think I don’t know how to do this??
I have severe adhd and had a “quick sand” moment at work. I made a mistake , tried to fix it but made another mistake by hitting the wrong button. Tried to fix that while the people grew impatient.
I couldn’t be mad because it was my mistake originally but now paperwork was completely fucked at that point and now I’m way overstimulated. So I said “fuck it” gave them the stuff for free ($3 worth of stuff. Yes that much stress and panic over three dollars.) and now I’m 27 short somehow.
I’m not a manger here so I don’t have the codes to fix this debacle now. But whatever they can fire me… I’m done worrying about that transaction.
It’s like quicksand, the more I try to fix it the deeper I got. So fuck it.
The most annoying part is I’ve been in management for 20 years before this job. I know I could figure it out. I was the paperwork genius for years. Without access to the various reports all I can do is hand this situation on to a manger. A manager who struggles with complex paperwork herself. Sucks bro.
Dropped a fork? Friend used the wrong punctuation mark in a text message? Accidentally thought about the wrong past event? Computer froze? Something didn't go exactly how I planned it in my head?
Could be anything. I guess it's always more than one thing, but my brain doesn't give me enough forewarning that I'm starting to feel crappy, so all these stupid minor things end up taking me by suprise. 😬
Edit: Also, this might be work specific, I do maintenance, when someone keeps talking with superfluous language and I already know everything they are going to say. Situations are formulaic, tell me where and what, everything else is erroneous, stop wasting both of our time. You’re at work, not on stage. Fuck!
It is genuinely a major pet peeve there's 2 elevators at work i push a button, nothing happens neither is moving whats happening? Who knows. But if i press both buttons the second elevator may move, why is one elevator seemingly locked out of use unless multiple demands are made? it pisses me off bad enough i will just take 6 flights of stairs if im already off center.
Y'all are like, "Schedules?! I just can't". And I'm like, "Tacking on last minute things to the thing we agreed was going to happen!" I'm so tilted now.
When I have a ritual day planned out and it gets cancelled for some reason.
If I have a full day with no responsibilities I'd do gym, eat at fast food place, get some coffee, go home, shower, watch anime where I walk/run between each activity.
If by any reason these plans get cancelled or derailed by something I forgot I promised to do or just urgent need I'll be very upset the rest of the day even though it'd be at most 10-15% reduction in a whatever or I'd have to drive/take bus between activities.
Another thing that really grinds my gears is when there's a scheduled time, clear path towards being on time and things get added last minute. Think of having a flight the day after, bag is packed, sleep is scheduled for good rest but for some reason some task gets added right before the 1h wind down before bed that adds 1.5h of delay to sleeping. Or just grabbing coffee/food before passing passport control etc.
People leaving the kitchen door open during/ after cooking, or the toilet door after having taken a dump, especially if the toilet has no window or active ventilation.
I mean, I get that some people have little sense of smell, but I can't stand to have any odor in any room it has no business of being.
My girlfriend is so bad for this. She will feed the cats and then leave things out on the counter when they should be put away. And then the cats get into them. I love her, but do it right or don’t do it at all.
A sunny day, a loud parade when we were not well informed of, fireworks that go on longer than 1 hour, fluorescent lights, minimalism, ruins without meaning, capitalism, borders, big phones, boring logos, etc.
Essentially, our ideal day is a nice thunderstorm day where we can draw whatever we like or play a game or two. Vc with friends, hell- work on a passion project or organize our files to music. We can lay down with our significant other and watch a movie, or go to the park if it’s just cloudy not rainy and walk around to organize and map out more of the city in our head, find something new. (Usually nothing crazy around lol, but that’s ok, we’re in it for the walk.)
Water droplets running down my wrists and arms. Like, after you wash your hands and lift them up. I shudder just thinking about it. I use paper towels to dry my hands immediately (sorry, environment!), and it’s like a race against the droplets.
Something scheduled. I am useless in the lead up because "I have to be ready"
Even a Teams call where I know what to do and say and am fully versed in the topic. The whole day I'm like "got that thing at 11, can't miss it".
And then I randomly start doing something else and forget the really important appointment or meeting anyway
10:58 waiting with the Teams window open, might just check my email
11:17 oh no
AuDHD gang.
Turns out the Sword of Damocles is not a parable about the precariousness of people in positions of power, it's just a first hand allegory of a neurodivergent person with a scheduled phonecall in the the afternoon.
YesNo, but ya also that, sorta
Something scheduled that gets canceled 5 minutes before it's supposed to happen.
God thats the best feeling
I had an in person meeting that did that recently. I'm wfh most of the time, and this really soured me
So much this.
omg 100%. if I have anything going on at all, even if it's just a fucking delivery, it ruins my whole day
Opening the post to comment an afternoon appointment…. Yeah.
There's something about waking up that just ruins everything.
Anything time-based. Fuck voicemail, I don't have time to listen to the slow voice read everything out, give me a ui and words and let me read at 700wpm. Even shit like power buttons make me mad. I'm always doing stuff, I can't dedicate 2 seconds to turning on my headphones because I'm using that hand for something else, like carrying food or opening something. The only bottleneck for how fast I can do something should be me. Bring back switches!
That one little reminder that you are different than everybody else, and no matter how hard you try, no matter what medicines you take, you will always be alone in that way.
Yeah I don't think you're alone in any of that.
Getting interrupted "real quick" while I'm in the zone.
To not understate, everyone hates that, yes, but I am actively done for the day. I don't want to talk to anyone anymore, I lose my appetite, I don't want to play my games, I don't want to finish work.
I'm done, and the task that I was doing is at an extreme risk of never being completed ever again.
I make my space to be "in the zone" with so much effort, don't break it, it's sacred to me.
Imagine watching a magical 3 hour movie and 2 hours in somebody cuts the power, and if you want to watch it again you have to start from the beginning
I hear ya. I have a ballooning collection of unfinished games because I lost that "zone" for too long or was interrupted too frequently.
Exactly. I mean, I know it's a first world problem but I suffer being both a completionist and neurodivergent.
Any minor inconvenience or disruption of my plans.
Someone wanting something but instead of asking for it directly, they drop hints. Even if I pick up the hint, I refuse to acknowledge them if you're not going to just say what you mean.
Persiatent and/or loud noises. Macherinery going, big fans, large groups of people all talking at once, the chirp of a smoke alarm needing a new battery, etc.
Bright white lights give me headaches. Bright neon lights are cool and fun tho. I don't really understand this one myself; a light blue light is almost white but it's okay. 🤷♂️
That is my personal hell right there... Nothing gets me agitated faster...
I'm in Autistic burnout... the slightest stress - just about any official letter, appointment with benefit agency or sometimes just something nasty on the news - can lead me straight into dissociation or shutdown. Occasionally, just having to concentrate hard can also wipe me out in a similar way. It usually takes at least a few days for me to recover.
I'm nearly 60, and this is new to me - I mean, I've had bouts before, but never as debilitating as this. I used to be able to cope with these things, even if they darkened my day.
Whooof.
This also describes our state, and it sucks.
Solidarity. You're so right. It's a wild ride, but I'm charting my symptoms, and they ARE improving - I hope the same is true for you. U had to make some big changes, cutting out energy drains, and then cut more and more. Self care is the most important thing in burnout, but learning what you need to do to provide yourself care is the hardest.
Plans changing or being shown something I forgot/didn't realize I was supposed to do can make me just not want to do anything for the rest of the day. Even stuff that makes me happy like watching movies or going for a walk in the park just seems like these monsterous tasks I can't handle afterwards.
Same. And my (now ex-) wife knew that, and toward the end of our relationship, it seems like she would make the most intricate plans just to completely change them at the last moment.
There was one day we had a plan to take the kids to meet her brothers at a sandwich shop down the street that we often went to - we were going separate ways afterwards so we took different cars, I went down the street and waited... And waited... And called her, she said she had gotten hung up getting something for one of the kids, but she was almost there... Waited another couple minutes (the place was literally 2 minutes away from the house) still no sign of her or her brothers so I called again... She said she was turning on x street- 3 miles away! Long story short (too late) she had changed the plan and we were going to the mall, and supposedly she told me that, but I sure as hell didn't remember that... And as it turned out, where she was going afterwards was to meet her affair partner, but I didn't know that then...
"Hey, let's meet up later today and do something fun!" Instant anxiety for the rest of the day. Plan changes are bad and worse if they are non-specific. There's a reason I don't cultivate friendships anymore.
Especially if you have one of those friends who invites you to do something, and then they "just have to do a thing real quick" and you end up going with them while they do a bunch of random chores in various places.
If someone does that to me, I'm not seeing them again ever.
Maybe try to find people who are on the same page? What if someone just wanted to visit you and shoot the shit? Would that be anxiety inducing?
It would absolutelybe anxiety-inducing. But if they said so up-front it'd be less bad than my, deliberately keeping-it-vague, example. That said: I don't want anyone that "just wanted to visit" and "shoot the shit" in my life. I want to plan social encounters at least a week in advance, longer is better.
When someone interrupts you in the middle of doing something to talk about something and they keep talking on and on just repeating themselves bringing no new information.
When my workflow is repeatedly interrupted by a stupid notification, request to "log in your Microslop account" or the OS hanging a few seconds after every use input on the Windows computer that I am forced to use for work. All unnecessary hurdles that interrupt my ideal workflow are the worst.
When you're working in something that requires you to concentrate and you are being repeatedly pulled out of this state of concentration by people who bug you about things. If it happens too many times in a row you end up with a huge headache and need a few hours of rest before you can concentrate again.
I have this friend that I invite over sometimes, but he has this habit of extending that invite to mutual friends without telling me, and so I’ll suddenly have 2 or 3 people rocking up to my place unexpectedly.
It drives me absolutely bananas. It was supposed to be a low-key hang out and now I have to come up with group activities on the spot.
Id fucking convulse. Props for keeping your head
That is unacceptable behavior, and I am quite sure many neurotypicals would also agree, even though it definitely depends on the cultural context as well. At least here it is just extremely rude to bring more quests without asking the host first, or at least telling them beforehand, unless you specifically have that type of relationship, or the invite was clearly open. That is like intentionally trying to embarass you in front of their other friends, as you might not have enough food, or drink, or other things prepared. That person would not be my friend afterwards.
Yes one quest is enough thank you very much
This is insane
Oh my god, this resonates hard. When I go over and the plan is to play board games but somehow it ends up having a group of 7 where the ideal group is 4 and I don't have 7 Wonders to play. It always ends up just drinking and talking because the group is too big to do anything.
7 ppl is just 2 games happening at the same time.
Not being on time to a planned event. I want to be slightly early/on time. For reasons unbeknownst to me, when I say "we need to leave at 35 after to get there on time", the people I'm going with aren't ready until 50 after. Drives me absolutely bonkers.
I hate not being on time. It gives me mad anxiety. I’m usually 10 mins early and then everyone else is late (which I’m surprisingly ok with - I just don’t want to be late myself).
I can completely understand how anxious and upset you’d be if someone made you wait so you were late to an event.
One time in high school I was supposed to go to a movie with a friend of mine, she was supposed to come to my place first and we'd leave from there. She never showed up (and it was the 90s so no texting) so I was just like "okay" and went about my day. Two days later she randomly showed up at my house and asked if I wanted to go. I said no because she was two entire days late and now I'm doing something else, and she got annoyed at me for not dropping everything and going.
I do not understand this.
Any big event in the afternoon/evening will just completely ruin my morning, as I will be unable to think about anything else
People being rude. In particular, people eating or making sporadic noises near me at work. And people who talk on speakerphone on quiet trains. I just… can’t handle it.
Two related things: people commenting on my tone of voice, and people assuming my emotions (usually because of my tone of voice.)
I've got a lot of trauma related to my tone. I've been punished so many times for it without having any clue what people were talking about, and now whenever someone brings up that word, all the deep-seated pain immediately rises to the surface. The only way I've found to get by is to heavily mask - if I'm clearly cheery, nobody can accuse me of having the wrong tone or attitude. Problem is, masking takes effort. When my energy is low, I can't self-monitor the way I'd like to, and people start to think I'm upset because my tone reverts to the way I naturally talk. I'll be happy, just a bit stressed or tired, and people will start saying shit like, "Calm down," or "Do you need a break? You're upset, go take a break."
Then when that happens, it's like my battery goes from 20% to zero. It's so hard to self-advocate when others think they know what you're feeling better than you do. When you can't control your vocal tone, people will assume any response is proof that you were upset in the first place (instead of a sign that their assumptions just sapped the last bit of energy out of you.) It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, upsetting me when I wasn't upset before, even if I was feeling great beforehand.
I wish neurotypical people could understand that not everyone expresses their emotions through tone, that sometimes it's a matter of energy being diverted from masking and into more crucial, pertinent tasks. Honestly, I wish I didn't have to mask at all, but I know that if I didn't I'd get a lot more comments and assumptions thrown at me. In the end, letting the mask slip results in punishment. Talking the way I naturally talk is punishment-worthy. That's a lesson that keeps getting reinforced every time I dare not put effort into masking and tone-modulation first and foremost.
Oooh and it's a double edged sword because people assume that your cheery mask voice is your default, so when it slips because you're tired, they assume that must mean something is really wrong because you are normally all cheery.
So sorry this has been used against you in such a horrible way
I have a naturally resting bitch face, and the tone of my voice can sound pissed off even when I'm not. It really boils my piss having to justify myself when all I'm doing is happily being somewhere in my own head minding my own business
Surprises or a change of schedule/unplanned activity, basically spontaneity is guaranteed to mess up the rest of the day.
My wife leaves her sunglasses on the dashboard of her car and they slide to the left or slide to the right when you go around a corner.
A few minutes of that is enough to ruin my day.
You just very clearly identified sonething that I have spent the past decade suppressing being annoyed about in our shared car.
Gift her a little magnetic or button thing that holds sunglasses and clips onto her sunvisor.
Doing or saying something that you later realise afterwards was not "normal" behavior and that people saw past the crack in your mask.
Guaranteed to give you an instant impostor syndrome attack that will last for the rest of the day, leaving you obsessively overthinking about how your messed up that basic social interaction, which leads you to make even more mistakes like that which compounds the problem.
I’ve had similar experiences about childhood stories. My parents were… Uhh… Not great. There have been several instances where I have told what I thought was a funny story, only to have friends/coworkers/etc end up looking horrified instead.
Damn that is some story! I'm sorry 😔
We also have the experience of telling "funny" stories, that people find less "funny" and more "horrifying".
I've gone days after an interaction with a cashier or similar (i.e. someone who will have forgotten our interaction two minutes later) thinking about how the phrase I used was dumb or weird.
With people I know it's even worse. I get "remember that time you said that weird thing" a year later.. it sucks.
Ugh, rumination!! Absolute bane of my existence! If I'm left alone with my thoughts, they go supernova on this shit. Apparently it's a fight or flight mechanism? Or at least it's trying to protect you, but it doesn't, it just sends me into a spiral. I used to swear at it, but then I started swearing (at myself) in public (oops!) So I had to stop doing that.
But I've had so much trauma in my life, my brain has picked rumination as a way to "not get into an incident like that again, if we micro analyse every nee and old interaction" so I'm working on letting my nervous system know that doesn't keep me safe, that's actually putting me in danger, (it'll break my self worth and sense of self, so much I won't be able to socialise at all, or send me into overwhelm and distress). And i do a Physiological sigh. Mostly working so far.
I still occasionally cringe and spiral over things I did and said 15 years ago. Just typing out this comment is enough to make me feel the tug of the spiral again.
This question, but everyone has to sit in a circle and share their answer plus repeat the answer of everyone that went before them.
Sock getting bunched up near a toe when I'm in a public place and can't remove the shoe.
Maybe I’m oblivious, but I can’t imagine a scenario where adjusting your shoe/sock would seem that weird. Now when you have a giant booger stuck in your nose and no tissue, that’s a different story.
A loud place.
If I go shopping and I accidentally stumble on a Saturday market or block party, and they're blasting music and people are dancing and going wild... I'm sleeping in for the next 24 hours.
In France we have a quiet shopping hour, for ND people, at my local supermarket. Lights down, no music for an hour. Absolutely love it.
One of the supermarkets near me did that for a while (in Canada) and it was great. I don't think they do it anymore though.
Just experienced sensory overload again because I had some important tests at school and the most minor sensory annoyances (eating with my parents and grandma and having to tolerate fridge, cutlery noises and some light conversation) sent me into a painful shutdown (which caused my mom and grandma to speak with (EDIT: well to, I couldn't really speak with them) me, which didn't make it better).
In the end, I just forced myself to eat the food and ran(well stumbled) off to my dad (who left early to watch sports) and was alone with him and just sat with him for some time. Not long after, I just left to lay in bed in a fetal position fully covered by a blanket for ~1-3 hours and occasionally listened to some random music in my downloads (with minimum brightness since everything else was too painful).
I'm still in an emotionally vulnerable condition and wouldn't feel safe going out alone(or doing anything else alone for that matter). I did drive a car and did some risky stuff, I shouldn't do (don't drive in a psychological condition like this, you could kill someone). (EDIT: also, my motor abilities are really limited in sensory overload(how did I even survive the drive))
So sensory overload is in my opinion the most painful thing about autism. Or vulnerability when in distress. Other than that, I like my autistic traits.
We make a plan where you tell me Xyz, but don't mention other important factors to the plan. What I expect to happen doesn't happen. instant mood shift into anger mostly because I should have asked more questions and you should have planned better.
Someone existing in the same space as me can have nothing to do with me and I'll still find them distracting. Somehow they're sitting quietly by themselves talking but that chatter makes me want to turn my skin inside out it's so distracting.
Have a social plan that I agreed to months earlier
Nothing ruins my whole day but explaining things to me I already understand/speaking to me like I’m stupid will ruin our whole interaction or relationship if they keep doing it. If I don’t know something I’ll be the first to ask questions, seek out instructions and help, I hate feeling unable and will do what I need to to learn but if I’m doing a mundane task and you start telling me how to I’m instantly 100% over you, why do you think I don’t know how to do this??
I have severe adhd and had a “quick sand” moment at work. I made a mistake , tried to fix it but made another mistake by hitting the wrong button. Tried to fix that while the people grew impatient.
I couldn’t be mad because it was my mistake originally but now paperwork was completely fucked at that point and now I’m way overstimulated. So I said “fuck it” gave them the stuff for free ($3 worth of stuff. Yes that much stress and panic over three dollars.) and now I’m 27 short somehow.
I’m not a manger here so I don’t have the codes to fix this debacle now. But whatever they can fire me… I’m done worrying about that transaction.
It’s like quicksand, the more I try to fix it the deeper I got. So fuck it.
The most annoying part is I’ve been in management for 20 years before this job. I know I could figure it out. I was the paperwork genius for years. Without access to the various reports all I can do is hand this situation on to a manger. A manager who struggles with complex paperwork herself. Sucks bro.
tell me to do something i am either about to do or in the act of doing. also warning me about a very obvious danger or impediment.
I never know until it happens.
Dropped a fork? Friend used the wrong punctuation mark in a text message? Accidentally thought about the wrong past event? Computer froze? Something didn't go exactly how I planned it in my head?
Could be anything. I guess it's always more than one thing, but my brain doesn't give me enough forewarning that I'm starting to feel crappy, so all these stupid minor things end up taking me by suprise. 😬
When the elevator takes too long.
Edit: Also, this might be work specific, I do maintenance, when someone keeps talking with superfluous language and I already know everything they are going to say. Situations are formulaic, tell me where and what, everything else is erroneous, stop wasting both of our time. You’re at work, not on stage. Fuck!
It is genuinely a major pet peeve there's 2 elevators at work i push a button, nothing happens neither is moving whats happening? Who knows. But if i press both buttons the second elevator may move, why is one elevator seemingly locked out of use unless multiple demands are made? it pisses me off bad enough i will just take 6 flights of stairs if im already off center.
A cloudless, sunny day
Bad news. It gets stuck in my head and I can't just "dismiss" it like NTs seem able to do.
Y'all are like, "Schedules?! I just can't". And I'm like, "Tacking on last minute things to the thing we agreed was going to happen!" I'm so tilted now.
eating while the sun is up
interacting with anybody before i've decided i'm fully awake
going outside without sunglasses and water for any amount of time
When I have a ritual day planned out and it gets cancelled for some reason.
If I have a full day with no responsibilities I'd do gym, eat at fast food place, get some coffee, go home, shower, watch anime where I walk/run between each activity.
If by any reason these plans get cancelled or derailed by something I forgot I promised to do or just urgent need I'll be very upset the rest of the day even though it'd be at most 10-15% reduction in a whatever or I'd have to drive/take bus between activities.
Another thing that really grinds my gears is when there's a scheduled time, clear path towards being on time and things get added last minute. Think of having a flight the day after, bag is packed, sleep is scheduled for good rest but for some reason some task gets added right before the 1h wind down before bed that adds 1.5h of delay to sleeping. Or just grabbing coffee/food before passing passport control etc.
Sunshine
Agreed. It's just the worst.
Bold of the the mulleted human View-Master to assume there's only one thing.
Before I retired, more uplanned work. Now? Unexpected disruption, when I had planned to do something.
People leaving the kitchen door open during/ after cooking, or the toilet door after having taken a dump, especially if the toilet has no window or active ventilation.
I mean, I get that some people have little sense of smell, but I can't stand to have any odor in any room it has no business of being.
If the toilet has no ventilation would it not be worse to keep the door closed??
The smell just soaks into the towels and the walls
Yummy
Someone trying to help around the house, but they do it wrong.
My girlfriend is so bad for this. She will feed the cats and then leave things out on the counter when they should be put away. And then the cats get into them. I love her, but do it right or don’t do it at all.
High pitched noises.
People being late, or people not understanding how long a task will take.
No wind.
Air that doesn't move is dead, and I don't want it anywhere near me.
Wrong color/font of website/pdf.
What are wrong colours and fonts?
Most of them.
The ones i can't read.
A sunny day, a loud parade when we were not well informed of, fireworks that go on longer than 1 hour, fluorescent lights, minimalism, ruins without meaning, capitalism, borders, big phones, boring logos, etc.
Essentially, our ideal day is a nice thunderstorm day where we can draw whatever we like or play a game or two. Vc with friends, hell- work on a passion project or organize our files to music. We can lay down with our significant other and watch a movie, or go to the park if it’s just cloudy not rainy and walk around to organize and map out more of the city in our head, find something new. (Usually nothing crazy around lol, but that’s ok, we’re in it for the walk.)
Water droplets running down my wrists and arms. Like, after you wash your hands and lift them up. I shudder just thinking about it. I use paper towels to dry my hands immediately (sorry, environment!), and it’s like a race against the droplets.
I wanted to shower. But the wife hung up the shower head wrong and now I can't
I wanted to shower, but my wife beat me to it and now the shower is wet. Going to have to wait several hours now.
To add on, when getting ready to leave for plans and a very loud noise or unexpected change happens last minute.
Waking up
Are you ok? Are you talking about just the whole process of waking up, or that waking up means facing the world once more?